happily ever after
by silvershadewolf
Summary: In the Cahill world, there was no happily ever after.


In the Cahill world, there was no **happily **ever _after_.

There were wars and battles and when they ended, there would always be another one.

There was life, but with every life there was death. Death and bloodshed. The swift downcut of a gleaming blade, the contents of a vial emptied into someone's teacup, the sharp crack of a gunshot. Scarlet streams running down paper-white flesh.

* * *

The nightmares haunted her. Flashes and snapshots, blurs and sparks of colour, screams and painful shrieks dotting her mind. She kept seeing the same thing: masked men and women, grinning and lifting a knife, hovering over her.

Maybe it was paranoia, but she swore there were people following her. Unknown people appeared in her email contacts list, a hulking black car kept appearing everywhere she went, and she was certain someone was tapping her phone.

They tried to help her. Doctors, therapists, guidance counsellors. She laughed at their efforts, because no one in the world knew what was happening, and certainly not the fat man with round glasses. Instead of listening to his voice, she stared at the spot on the wall behind him instead. Faded from the world.

There was that place in her mind, a place where she could go to escape Them. Well, she tried. But in the end, they always found her and she screamed, and screamed, but no one ever came to help.

They couldn't see what she saw...

_There's no one there, Natalie. You're just seeing things. Imagining._

_Please, try to see the difference between reality and your hallucinations!_

_They're not real. The threat is over._

And then more forcibly, more frustrated, agitated with her...

_Damn it, there's no one there! NOTHING! Can't you see that?_

They didn't understand.

She was running now, but one day she would run out of energy and they would catch her, and kill her, and then where would she be?

_The threat is over._

No, it wasn't. They thought it was over and done and they thought they had won but _they didn't_. They were still out there and they were following them, one by one, and they were going to kill them off! Kill them all off!

She tried to tell them this, but they didn't listen, never listened.

Where would she be? She would be dead and gone and she'd never see the happily ever after that they all deserved.

In fairy-tales, there was the bad guy. The evil witch, the jealous queen, the murderous king. But they would be defeated and everyone would live happily ever after.

They were not defeated yet.

* * *

The whispers always followed her, around ever corner she turned and down every street she walked.

_Is she okay?_

_Is the current doctor not working?_

_Maybe we should try the facility._

They never said _which_ facility, but she knew exactly which one they meant.

But if she was locked up in the Place, they'd never know about the danger. It was what They wanted, what They were planning for. The Cahills were falling right into Their trap!

* * *

"Natalie, who are _They_? You keep talking about them-is this something from when you were held hostage by the Vespers-"

Natalie shocked him by spontaneously bursting into tears. Rocking back on her heels and sobbing her soul out for a full minute before remembering her Kabra dignity and pulling herself together.

"Don't say that word!" she screeched. Covered her ears with her hands, violently shaking her head and muttering, "Bad. Bad, bad, bad."

It shocked him to see the state which his sister was in. Had the Kabras really fallen to such despicable pieces? In some ways, he was even disgusted-repulsed-but he tried not to show it.

Natalie was absolutely destroyed.

Oh, yes, it filled him with loathing for the Vespers, but that old part of him that refused to go away, that old part of him just wanted to forget about his sister. It would make his life easier, after all.

Famous last words.

* * *

Her world was falling down before her eyes.

She could see how her own brother despised her, how no one believed her anymore. She received tired sighs and pitiful looks instead of the panicked reaction she expected whenever she took to prophesying the intimate danger.

No one else believed her, either. She could tell how they wanted to just forget about her, leave her on the own, and then immediately felt guilty for thinking such thoughts.

* * *

_I want my mother!_

* * *

There was only one way to do _that_. It was logical, anyway.

If they didn't want to listen...

They wouldn't get their happily ever after.

They'd be relieved, anyway, right? Maybe she was reading that completely wrong. But they didn't _want_ her around.

* * *

She would get _her_ happily-ever-after.

* * *

Too bad not all Cahills went to heaven.


End file.
